


One Stray Bullet

by loves_books



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 18:17:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1908948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loves_books/pseuds/loves_books
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They got their man, just as they always do, but no one realised he had a gun. And one stray bullet can do a whole lot of damage...</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Stray Bullet

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wrestling with another story for a while now but had this little idea which demanded to be written - it's been written in just a few hours and is unbetaed, barely edited, and probably far from original. I'm posting it as is in order to stop myself tinkering with it endlessly and to get back to my other story. Having said that, hopefully there is something here someone might enjoy!

Lewis gives the handcuffs one last good tug as the uniformed officers move in to take the man away, just to check. Not that he doubts himself, no, just getting that extra kick of satisfaction by making sure they really are secure. “Get him out of here,” he growls to one of the constables at his shoulder, stepping back and finally starting to catch his breath, chest still heaving. He hadn’t realised he was quite this out of shape.

They’d been led one hell of chase this time, through fields and woodland, and typically the dog unit had arrived just as it was all over. None of them had expected their suspect to have a gun, which had added a whole extra level of danger to the final flurry of action, though thankfully the few shots fired seem to have gone wide. Once he’d finally been surrounded, the man had given up the struggle and his gun almost immediately, and he hasn’t spoken a word since Lewis cautioned him.

Shouted the caution in his ear, really, and now Lewis can already feel himself starting to shake a little as the adrenaline rush starts to fade. Still, he’ll have to wait a little longer for the pint or two he needs to settle his nerves – the paperwork after a firearms incident always takes ten times as long as the regular paperwork does, but at least they got their man. In his gut, Lewis knows the confession they need will come very quickly, once they get the suspect back to the station and into an interview room.

Dragging one hand through his messy hair, finding a leaf tucked behind his left ear – he’s getting far too old to be tackling suspects to the ground, and he already knows his back won’t thank him for that particular move later – he watches as the man is led away over the fields towards the waiting vans. There are a few coppers still moving about in the long grass, just one or two of them marking out the area for when SOCO arrive, and Julie Lockhart is hovering close by, clearly waiting to see if either Lewis or Hathaway have any particular instructions for her.

She’s turning into a very good copper, Lewis knows, and he also knows his sergeant has been giving her more responsibility over the last few months, pushing her forwards even more. She’s got the makings of a good detective – one to watch, definitely, and one for both he and Hathaway to guide and mentor as best they can.

“Sir?” A slightly shaky voice from behind him snaps Lewis out of his thoughts, and he half-turns towards Hathaway, who is standing just behind him, under the shade of a tree. 

“Come on, Sergeant,” he huffs, scrubbing a hand back through his hair yet again before rubbing it over his face with a tired sigh. “Let’s head back. I think we’ve done more than our fair share for the day.”

A hand lands tentatively on his shoulder, and that shaky voice whispers, “Robbie…?”

Instantly Lewis spins around, heart suddenly starting to race with fear. Pain, there, in that voice he knows so well, and the fact that Hathaway is using his first name when they are on duty sends shards of fear stabbing through his chest.

“James? What is it?” Lewis catches the taller man by the shoulders as Hathaway wavers on his feet, long face visibly about ten shades paler than usual. “Talk to me.”

Holding his partner at arm’s length, Lewis rakes his gaze quickly down the length of James’s slender body. The younger man is wearing his jet black suit today, with a matching black shirt and pale pink tie, and for a moment Lewis can’t see what might be wrong, except for the fact that Hathaway has one hand clenched tightly into a fist and is pressing it hard into his stomach.

“Sir…” James breathes again, then his legs seem to crumble beneath him and he starts to fall. Lewis catches him, goes down with him, guides the younger man as best he can until James lands more or less flat on his back beneath the tree, head coming to rest on a protruding root. “Sorry…”

“Let me see,” Lewis commands, hands already moving, trying and failing to keep his voice steady. Behind him he can hear Julie on the radio, calling for back-up, calling for an ambulance. Using the two words any police officer dreads hearing – officer down. 

James offers little resistance when Lewis lifts that fisted hand away from his stomach before carefully opening the suit jacket, already able to feel the blood soaking through the material as his fingers fumble over the buttons. He tears open the black shirt beneath, somehow knowing exactly what he’ll find, and there is just so much blood that at first he can’t even see where the bullet hit. So much blood. Too much blood.

“Doesn’t hurt,” James mumbles, eyelids flickering wildly and face somehow growing paler still. “I didn’t know, I didn’t see…”

“Hush now, lad, just be still,” Lewis murmurs in response, even as he strips quickly out of his own jacket, wadding it up into a pad. He hesitates for only the briefest second before pressing it firmly down onto the wound, which lies just beneath James’s ribcage on the right side of his abdomen. He leans all of his weight down, trying to slow the thick ooze of blood, and James doesn’t even whimper, though Lewis knows the action should cause him great pain.

Dimly he’s aware of Julie still behind him, still on the radio, still calling for backup. He can hear the shouts of some of the other officers heading back their way, but it all seems quite unimportant compared with the man lying in front of him now, bleeding and growing visibly weaker by the second.

“Sir…” James’s voice is no more than a breath, and his eyes slip shut for a second before he forces them back open with a harsh gasp. “Are you okay? You weren’t… he didn’t…?”

“I’m just fine, James. He didn’t hurt me.” Blood is already soaking through his jacket, and the air is thick with the unmistakable tang of copper. 

“Good, that’s… That’s good…” 

Lewis looks back desperately over his shoulder to where Julie is standing, a couple of metres behind him as he kneels at James’s side. “Where are they?” he shouts, and she flinches before straightening up, one hand still holding her radio tightly.

“Coming as fast as they can, Sir,” she reports, voice steady though her eyes are shining suspiciously. “They can’t get the ambulance over the last two fields so they’re on foot.”

“You hear that, James?” Lewis bends back over the injured man, his wounded partner. “They’re coming now, the paramedics. You just hold on for me. Just a little longer.”

James’s eyes are unfocussed now, though miraculously they are still open, barely. “Robbie?” he gasps, and Lewis winces to hear how ragged his breathing has become. “Doesn’t hurt…”

“Good, James. That’s good.” It’s not, of course, not good at all. Lewis swallows, offers another white lie – “It’s just a scratch, but you need to lie still.” He pushes down harder still on his jacket, over the gunshot wound, though he doesn’t know how much good he’s really doing. He can feel James’s blood reaching up through the material, spreading, leaving his body too quickly. “Hang on for me, pet.”

As soon as the last word slips past his lips, Lewis winces internally, knowing he shouldn’t have said it. Never at work; they’d agreed that soon after they’d started this new relationship, just a few short months ago now when Lewis finally realised how blind he’d been to what had been standing right in front of him for all these years. Finally realised all the longing looks he’d missed from James, finally realised how much he needed the other man in his life and in his bed. Finally realised what they could have together, how they were already closer than colleagues, closer even than just good friends. Finally realised it was love he felt when he looked at the younger man.

Never at work, though. Lewis and Hathaway had to stay separate from Robbie and James, always, under any and all normal circumstances.

But this, surely, is hardly a normal circumstance, not under any definition of the phrase. The lines have already blurred, and James has started to visibly shiver now, shock and blood loss taking their toll, though his thin lips seem almost to have quirked up into a tiny smile at hearing Lewis’s words.

“You’re really okay?” the injured man slurs, a thin trickle of blood escaping from the corner of his mouth to Lewis’s horror.

“I’m really okay, and you’re going to be okay too. Promise.” 

Behind him, Lewis is aware of Julie taking a few steps back, turning away slightly to give them some privacy. There’s nothing she can do to help until the paramedics arrive, though Lewis knows she would do almost anything for James, knows how much she respects his sergeant. The other returning officers have formed a protective circle of sorts around the tree, none of them within earshot of the whispers and gasps that are all the words James seems to have left now as his blood continues to pour from his too-thin body. 

Heedless of them all, Lewis leans closer down over James, trying to catch his unfocused gaze and failing. No colour at all in James’s face now, his lips slightly blue as he gasps yet again, “Robbie?”

“I’m here.” It’s all Lewis can think to say, and his throat feels tight. It can’t end like this, surely, not in a damp field on a hot summer’s day. Not from one stray bullet fired by a desperate man. Not like this, not for his James. Not after everything they’ve survived, not now they are finally together. “I’m right here, pet, and I won’t leave you. Hang on now, just a little longer. Be brave.”

“You’re here…” James’s eyes slip slowly closed as he coughs once, twice, more blood trickling from his mouth. His voice is thicker when he speaks next, and those beautiful dark eyes don’t open again. “I’m glad…”

“I won’t leave you, James. Never.” Running footsteps at last, and raised voices, Julie back on her radio, but Lewis stays focussed, keeps the pressure on the bullet wound.

For the first time, James’s face twists in pain as he rolls his head slightly against the tree root. He coughs again, deeper and wetter than before, each breath rattling in his chest, and Lewis swallows back his tears, knowing he has to stay strong. “Been an honour, sir,” James mumbles, trying to smile but grimacing instead, one pale hand twitching on the grass between them. Lewis longs to take it and hold it tight, though he knows he can’t ease up on the pressure, not for even a second. “No, it’s been… a pleasure…”

Lewis has to swallow hard before he can speak, knowing James is trying to tell him goodbye – where the hell are the paramedics, surely the field isn’t that big? – and he leans as close as he can, getting his lips to James’s ear, ignoring the twinge of pain from his back. “Same here, pet,” he tells his man, hesitating before he adds, “Love you, James.”

A sharp intake of breath from behind him suggests Julie may have heard, though Lewis couldn’t give a damn at that moment. All his attention is on James as the wounded man – dying man, Lewis’s mind supplies, though he brutally squashes the thought before it can take root – gasps again and manages a tiny smile, just for a moment, before the tension seems to fall away from his face and his body grows terrifyingly still, blood still seeping slowly between Lewis’s fingers. 

“James?” No, not now, not like this, not ever, not James – Lewis’s mind goes into overdrive, panic threatening to drown out every other thought, though he manages to keep leaning all his weight on the stomach wound, his hands slick with blood as he whispers, “James, pet? Please, love, please…”

And then, at last, strong hands are tugging him back, taking over, lifting the ruins of his suit jacket away from James’s blood-smeared belly, replacing it with sterile pressure dressings. One paramedic immediately places an oxygen mask and bag over James’s mouth and nose, while a second cuts away his shirt and tie, attaching a pulse monitor and blood pressure cuff, and there are wires placed to his pale chest, and then there is the whine of a defibrillator charging, and Lewis can’t watch, lets himself be lifted to his feet and guided back as the paramedics work, can’t watch but can’t look away, not James, not like this, not now, not ever – 

Can’t look away, even as Julie comes to stand by his right shoulder, and Innocent appears suddenly at his left. Of course, she’d been supervising the whole operation, wanting to be out in the thick of the action rather than stuck behind her desk all the time. She’d been waiting in a car on the main road, several fields back, and Lewis can hear she is out of breath. He’s grateful she says nothing, though, squeezing his shoulder tightly instead as Julie lays a shaking hand on his back.

No one says a word as the paramedics work over the fallen man, and Lewis can’t tear his eyes away. The ring of police officers has grown now, though they have fallen back slightly, word spreading as to which officer has been wounded. James is well-liked and well-respected around the station, Lewis knows, never the life and soul of the party of course, but known to be a good man, a fair man, an honest man. He is so proud of his sergeant it almost hurts, and he feels the jolt in his own chest as paddles are pressed to James’s still body, as his man jerks with the shock of electricity forcing his heart to beat.

When it happens, it happens quickly. The paramedics are suddenly moving, lifting James onto a stretcher, keeping the oxygen mask in place, replacing the blood-soaked pressure bandage with another, inserting an IV line into the back of one pale hand, resting the attached bag of fluid on his chest, tucking a blanket carefully around his long body.

The police officers form a strange honour guard of sorts, four of them moving to help carry the stretcher as they move quickly back through the field, over the fence, through a tiny thicket of woodland, another field – Lewis hadn’t realised just how far from civilisation the chase had led them, though he keeps his eyes locked on James’s grey face the whole time. A single steak of bright red blood on James’s cheek is the only colour visible, and the young man looks frighteningly like a waxwork figure, or a corpse.

Lewis keeps out of the way of the paramedics and the stretcher-bearers, walking close behind them as they hurry on, Innocent right by his side with her hand still tight on his shoulder. Julie has disappeared into the honour guard, and Lewis’s back is somehow cold where her small hand had recently been. 

It happens quickly, and James is soon being loaded into the back of an ambulance, the paramedics disappearing inside, the doors slamming closed. The siren wails loudly as they drive off, shattering the silence of the Oxfordshire countryside. Lewis finds himself bundled into a squad car, Innocent closing the door behind him though she remains at the scene, and he is driven at dangerous speeds through narrow country roads, following the ambulance which contains his sergeant. His partner. His James.

The hospital is a blur of action and voices and colours and lights, and Lewis lets himself be swept along in it all. No way for him to be with James right now, he knows, and so he lets the doctors check him over. Lets one of the nurses help him scrub his hands clean of James’s blood, lets them help him change from his blood-stained suit into a set of pale blue hospital scrubs. But he won’t let them throw out the shirt and trousers that have soaked up so much of his man’s blood. Irrational, he knows, but perhaps James might need it. He’d lost so much blood, this little bit extra might be important. It might also be all Lewis has left, if things don’t work out the way they should.

He lets them bundle a blanket around his shoulders, not realising how much he was shaking – shock, he understands, and he thinks he manages to say thanks at some point. He lets them guide him to the surgical waiting area, listens as the nurse there explains that James is still in surgery. Tries to ask a few questions, hates that there are no answers yet.

And then, suddenly, things aren’t happening so quickly. Reality seems to grind to a halt as he sits in that tiny waiting room, perched on an uncomfortable plastic chair, a cup of too-weak tea in his hands. Julie had brought him the tea, along with a sandwich he can’t bring himself to touch, and she is standing guard just outside the waiting room with another uniformed officer. Dan, Lewis thinks distractedly, though it could be Dom or Dave for all he knows. Not important right now. 

The only important thing is James, who is still in surgery. Still fighting for his life. Still alive, though, which is more than Lewis had dared to hope for back in that field. Seems like a lifetime ago now, though it’s barely been two hours.

Three hours, then four. Laura calls and speaks to him briefly, sounding calm and detached, though Lewis knows that’s just her professional mask firmly in place. Innocent arrives, bringing him more weak tea, sitting with him silently. Five hours, then six. Night, now, and still no word other than that James is still in surgery. Still fighting.

And then, at last, finally, a doctor appears in the doorway. He looks exhausted but pleased, and Lewis immediately feels the knot in his chest relax a fraction. He’s good at reading body language, has to be in his line of work, and he finds he is already smiling before the doctor eventually speaks.

“Sergeant Hathaway is out of surgery, in recovery, and barring infections or complications he is going to be just fine.” Lewis slumps down in his chair at the matter-of-fact announcement, head dropping back to thump against the wall, the widest grin splitting his face in two as Innocent asks a few questions. The answers are nowhere near as terrifying as they could have been. 

The bullet had torn through muscle and blood vessels, damaged a main artery, and finally lodged near James’s spine, all of which had meant surgery was risky and very complicated. His spleen had to be removed, but miraculously there had been no other serious damage to his internal organs. Blood transfusions and antibiotics and close monitoring, off his feet for the next few weeks at least, but absolutely no reason to think James won’t make a full recovery in time. 

“What about the rest of it?” Lewis eventually asks, just before the doctor makes his escape. “His heart stopped, back in that field. Will he be…?” He can’t finish the question, words failing him. Is his heart okay? And will there be brain damage from the time it wasn’t beating, when there would have been no blood flowing, no oxygen? He can’t even bring himself to imagine it: a world where that bright and brilliant brain of James’s isn’t working at full speed, a world where one of the most intelligent men he’s ever known might be reduced to a mere shadow of his former self.

But the doctor smiles and nods, turning back to face him. “The paramedics got his heart started again very quickly, and there’s no reason to think there will be any lasting effects. We’ll run tests just to make sure, of course, when he wakes. I understand you were the man who kept pressure on the wound until the medics were able to get to him?”

Lewis blinks, remembering the sticky warmth of James’s blood all over his hands, as Innocent’s hand lands reassuringly back on his shoulder. “I did,” he says softly. “He’s my…” Should say sergeant, particularly in front of his boss, but Lewis thinks Innocent already knows about them. Thinks she probably suspected something was going on long before the two of them actually got themselves sorted. Can’t bring himself to say lover, or boyfriend, though, since James is far more than just those simple words. Settles for something ambiguous, yet perfectly true in every sense of the word – “He’s my partner.”

“You saved his life,” the doctor tells him, and Innocent murmurs her agreement. “As soon as we have him settled in the intensive care unit, we’ll come get you. You won’t be able to stay with him tonight, but you’ll be able to see him for a few minutes, if you’d like.”

Lewis manages to thank the doctor, shakes his hand, then collapses back into the chair as relief floods his body. Innocent says something he doesn’t really hear before disappearing from the room, mobile already in hand. She’ll call the station, most likely, let everyone know how their fallen officer is doing. Lewis is only grateful she didn’t ask if she could call James’s next of kin, too, then he remembers she knows all too well that the only emergency contact listed in James’s file is one Detective Inspector Robert Lewis. He can hear voices outside the room as she speaks to Julie and Dan, or Dom, or Dave, then silence falls as he settles himself to wait yet again.

Time seems to resume its normal steady pace, thankfully, and soon enough Lewis finds himself escorted from the waiting room and down long corridors, past quiet rooms with lowered lights and desks surrounded by staff in various coloured scrub outfits. And then finally, finally, finally…

A private room, as befits a fallen police officer. James is still pale, still limp and motionless, but he is alive. The long length of his body seems to be strangely dwarfed by the hospital bed in which he lies, surrounded by beeping monitors and hooked up to numerous IV lines, and he looks incredibly young and vulnerable. Breathing for himself at least, Lewis is relieved to see, with a thin oxygen cannula tucked into his nostrils and snaking away behind his ears, giving him some extra support. There is a clean white sheet pulled up to his waist, but other than that he is bare-chested, a thickly padded dressing covering his slender belly and taped firmly into place. 

The room is warm, and the steady beeping of the various monitors is both soothing and reassuring in equal measures. “Five minutes,” the nurse warns quietly, before leaving Lewis alone in the intensive care room with his man.

“Oh, James,” Lewis sighs, standing frozen in the doorway. What can he do, now he is actually here? What should he do? Can he touch, or would that cause pain? Should he just look, and be grateful he has that chance at all? 

But then one long, pale hand twitches restlessly where it lies on top of the sheet, and Lewis is moving without even thinking about it, crossing the room in two long strides and lifting James’s hand carefully into his own, wary of the IV line inserted into the back. He isn’t sure what he’d expected, but James is warm to the touch, and warm means alive, and alive means not dead, and suddenly Lewis is fighting back tears.

“Robbie?” 

Barely more than a breath of a whisper, and so incredibly unexpected – Lewis looks up to James’s face to find bleary eyes blinking up at him, a frown of confusion hovering on that distinguished brow. “I’m here, love,” he says quickly, raising one hand to stroke that frown away, brushing short strands of hair away from James’s forehead. “You’re okay now.”

James manages to turn his head slightly, leaning into Lewis’s gentle touch. “…wha’ happen’d?” the injured man asks, immediately followed by a worried, “You ‘kay?”

Lewis chokes out a laugh at just how typical that question is. Trust James to be worrying about him when he is the one who nearly… “I’m fine,” he reassures James, tears blurring his eyes badly though he doesn’t let them fall. “You were shot, pet, but you’re going to be okay. No one else was hurt. And we got the man who did it.”

Just enough information to be going on with, and the answers to all the main questions Lewis knows James would ask if he could. But James isn’t strong enough for more, though he does manage to nod, moving his head just an inch against the pillow. “Good,” he breathes, dark eyes already sliding slowly closed once more, the heavy drugs in his system pulling him back to sleep. “Love you…”

“I love you too.” Lewis leans down and presses a gentle kiss to James’s chapped lips, feels his man try to kiss him back. “Sleep, James. I’ll see you in the morning.” And James is out like a light, blood loss and surgery and medication sending him deep into a dreamless sleep within seconds. 

Lewis has no such help as he lies awake in his flat later that night, cold and lonely in the large bed he usually shares with James, after being politely forced to leave by the staff of the ICU. He understands all the reasons he can’t stay with his man, on a purely practical level, but he does wish he could stay closer to James after a scare like the one they’ve had. He doesn’t manage to get much more than a few minutes sleep all night, and even that is haunted by nightmares where James dies right in front of him, in a field full of bright red blood. 

First thing in the morning and he is back at the doors of the ICU, showered and shaved and dressed in a suit once more, needing desperately to see James. The injured man has apparently had a good night and is stable, and is still sleeping when Lewis takes his hand and strokes his hair gently. James doesn’t wake even when Lewis leans down to kiss his forehead, though he stirs ever so slightly, lips parting in a sigh.

Lewis can’t stay, of course, at least not for as long as he would like. There are still interviews and piles of paperwork to be done back at the station, though it turns out their suspect had indeed confessed to everything as soon as he’d been taken into an interview room late yesterday afternoon. Lewis hears from Innocent how the man had actually broken down in tears when he realised he’d shot a police officer, though the Inspector can’t find it in his heart to feel sorry for the man. It might not have been deliberate, but he’d nearly lost his James, and for that there can be no forgiveness.

Innocent makes no mention of what she may have seen or heard or suspected yesterday, on a personal level, and Lewis wishes he could thank her for that. Instead, she makes it clear that Lewis is to take at least a week’s leave after he finishes up the reports, before sending him straight to his office with a fond smile and a gentle pat on the arm. 

As he walks back through the station, it seems just about everyone wants to stop him to ask how Sergeant Hathaway is doing, and Lewis finds it surprisingly hard to cope with the attention. He answers all their questions as well as he can, finding he is repeating himself over and over again. James will be fine, in time. Recovering well. He’ll be just fine, really. Eventually, Julie comes to his rescue by chasing everyone away with a ferocity that belies her small stature, letting him escape at last into his silent office. 

After bringing him coffee and biscuits, the young WPC hovers in the doorway for a moment and Lewis winces, bracing himself for her inevitable questions. She’d heard what he said to the injured James yesterday, of course she’d heard, and she’d almost certainly been aware of the many rumours about the two of them beforehand. There have been rumours for years, though no truth there at all until very recently. Innocent has always been able to ignore it, but now, if Julie makes a complaint, if she spreads any new rumours, if she takes it further – but then Lewis remembers ‘if you go, I go’ and it calms him. If they can’t work together, him and James, they’ll both leave, and that’ll be that.

But to Lewis’s relief Julie makes no comment on what she might have heard, no word of complaint, and he suddenly realises that of course she isn’t the type to gossip. She does hover a moment longer though, watching him with understanding eyes, before asking him only one question. 

“Are you okay, Sir?” He gives her a surprised nod and she smiles at him before turning serious again, her voice soft. “Give him our love too, would you, Inspector? And let us know when he’s up for visitors?”

With that, she is gone, and Lewis finds he is suddenly alone with a pile of paperwork and James’s empty desk. A laugh of sheer relief slips out of him, though it sounds too loud in their quiet office and he quickly covers his mouth with one hand. Shaking his head, he buries himself in the damned paperwork, racing through reports in triplicate as fast as he can. The whole time, he can hear James’s voice in the back of his head, politely mocking his lack of punctuation and reminding him of the need for grammar, and then as soon as possible he packs up his things, grabs everything he thinks James might want from his desk, and makes his escape once more.

And when he gets back to the hospital at long last, James is awake and sitting up slightly in his ICU bed, still pale and exhausted and swathed in bandages but holding out a hand to him, smiling brightly. And Lewis knows everything really will be just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Edited for one tiny yet annoying error - thanks to Wendymr for spotting it x


End file.
